day one.
it's been a long time comin but here you go. thanks for being patient <3
trigger warning for brief mention of child abuse
Robby unlocked his front door and tucked his keys back into his pocket before turning to the plastic card table set up with the natla, a ritual pitcher, and bowl of water to rinse his hands of the impurities of the cemetery before entering his home.
Dumping water that had been sitting outside in February over his hands made his entire body shiver. "Jesus..." he muttered as he shook off his hands. He went inside, putting in the code on the security panel and then turning off the alarm so it wouldn't start beeping every time someone opened the door. Then he had to go dismiss the Was this you? Are you sure? notification on his phone. Stupid dual authorization bullshit.
Once his family had cleansed their hands and made it inside, Uncle Dominik lit the shiva candle, reciting a prayer while he did. There it sat, burning away on Robby's mantle. A constant reminder of what they were all there for over the next week.
Robby thought about blowing it out. Or maybe dumping the natla on it. Or grabbing it and throwing it against a wall.
He realized it wasn't really the time to be angry, and even if it was, taking it out on the candle wouldn't do any good. He watched the flame flicker and wished he had taken the chance to be angry at his father before he died. Screaming in his face probably would have been very cathartic. Or maybe it wouldn’t. He hadn't seen him in years, but from what he had heard, it wouldn't have been a pretty sight. Shouting obscenities at a frail cancer patient would not only look terrible, but probably feel pretty fucking bad too.
Oh, well.
As Rabbi Solomon set up the shiva chairs, Sam, Kira, and Jack headed to the kitchen to prepare the seudas ha-vra'ah, the meal of consolation, and Robby watched the hoard of people file into his house. He found himself quite literally twitching anxiously as his space was crowded. He kept wanting to tell people Don't touch that, don't sit there, quit looking around so much. The only comfort was that each day would bring less and less guests as the novelty of visiting faded over the week.
He really wanted to go upstairs and mope in his room by himself, but he had obligations. He also wanted to go back to work and ignore the fact that his father ever existed, but he was trapped in his house for the next seven days. Why couldn't his dad have died in the spring, so at least he could step out onto the porch every once in a while without freezing?
Damn, he wanted a cigarette. Too bad it had been close to fifteen years since he bought some and the only person who might let him bum one (Dana) was unfortunately successful in quitting.
Ugh.
When the meal of consolation was ready, the mourners entered the kitchen and sat in the low chairs arranged where the table used to be. It was now pushed up against the back door and filled buffet-style with all the dishes the visitors had brought.
A plate was placed in his open hands, as if he had been waiting for it instead of staring at his palms in his lap. He looked up, seeing Jack standing there offering a comforting smile.
He wanted to say thanks. He couldn’t quite get his mouth to open. A shrill ringing in his ears made his skin buzz.
Jack simply patted his shoulder and followed Sam and Kira out of the room as Rabbi Solomon handed out the books he brought for hamotzi.
His sister had been adamant about doing all the prayers and all the rituals. With the way she acted and how devout she was and how she inherited so many features from their father, it was getting a little hard to separate her from Bubbe.
The books were opened and the prayer began.
He couldn’t get his eyes to focus on the words in front of him, and he felt incredibly nauseous. Dizzy, even. Like he would have fallen over if he was standing. His breath was tight in his chest, stuck like a solid mass instead of the untouchable intangibility of oxygen. The few seconds that it took for the prayer to be recited felt agonizingly long, like minutes or hours instead.
A thin, clammy sweat formed on his brow as the melodic voices around him became starkly clear at the end. “...hamotzi lechem min ha-aretz, amen.”
He reached for the bagel on his plate, just as they all did, and took a bite.
He spent the rest of the meal staring down at the plate sitting on his lap and feeling the residual heat seep under it to form a sort of condensation on his pant legs. Lentils, hard boiled eggs, wine —three things he never really liked— and the bread: a bagel. He was a picky eater as a kid, and maybe it was just the sense of routine that stuck with him and made him never want to retry the things he hated and see if his palate had changed. As for the wine… Well, he was more of a beer or whiskey kind of guy. If that was included in the meal, he would have been a lot less depressed. He could stomach the bagel, but he would have to stop ripping it apart first.
The comforting feeling of tearing it to bits reminded him of one of the few times his father was actually around when he was young. He was in a bad mood from school and he was tearing up his dinner bread just like now. Bubbe and Saba were out for the evening, so it was just him and his dad. He must have been told four or five times to stop playing with his food, but he just kept doing it, and that didn't end well for him.
"Your food's getting cold, Michael," Kat said gently.
The sudden voice made him jump. It took a solid thirty seconds before he remembered he was an adult now, and he was not, in fact, getting in any trouble.
"I know," he said quietly. He tossed the mangled shreds of the bread back onto the plate. He just wanted to go to bed. But he suffered through the meal in silence and ate a little something. Keeping it down was even harder than eating it in the first place, but he managed.
Then came the birkas hamazon. It had been decades since he attended his last shiva, back when his grandmother died and he was fresh out of medical school. He had forgotten how much praying there was to be done, but he fell back into it easy enough.
The melodies, even with just three voices instead of the more bountiful choruses he was used to, were nostalgic and comforting. As his eyes trailed across the writing on the page he held open, the sense of dread trapped under his skin started to escape, but he made a choice to hold onto it. He was angry, and he wanted to be angry, and somehow that was even more of a comfort than the familiarity of his culture. He let it worsen and fester and boil throughout the long and slow blessing, waiting for it to be done before searching for an opportunity to burst that particular bubble.
He rubbed at his tired eyes and glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. He never put new batteries in it. He wasn’t wearing a watch either. No way to tell how much longer he had to put up with the visitors. Fuck.
"I miss him too," Dominik said, giving Robby's forearm an awkward pat in a mistaken gesture of comfort.
"I don't miss him," Robby argued, quickly pulling away from the touch. "I'm stressed out and pissed off by having all these strangers in my house."
"They're not strangers. They're all from the synagogue," Kat said. "This is your community."
Robby shook his head. "I'm not a part of it anymore."
"You could be, Michael. It's a choice you can make," Kat said.
Robby scoffed. "Don't nag me. You're not my mother."
"No. I'm your sister."
"Half sister."
Kat sighed. "Why do you feel the need to keep reiterating that? Do you really hate me that much?"
"I don't hate you. I barely think about you," Robby said.
He knew that was probably more hurtful, and that was why he said it.
She looked away and started to cry.
Dominik gave Robby a disappointed look. "Like father, like son."
Robby simply scoffed at that.
“I’ll, um… I’ll ask Sam to start cleaning up,” Kat said between sniffles as she wiped her eyes, setting her plate on the counter and walking out of the room.
Instead of Sam, though, it was Jack and Dennis who came back.
Great.
Dominik left the room as well to, presumably, go assist in comforting Kat. Robby was still sitting in his chair, though, with the barely-touched meal still on the plate in his lap.
Dennis eventually came over to take the plate from him, but before walking away, he asked, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Robby grumbled. He sat up, fixing his slouching posture. “You should just go home. You don’t need to be here.”
“I want to be here, Robby. To support you,” Dennis replied, handing the dish off to Jack to wash. He gestured to the table of dishes. “I brought a fruit tray. I read desserts are what most people bring, so I wanted to give you something healthier to–”
“Just be quiet,” Robby cut him off abruptly. He stood up, and since Dennis was still so close, they were nearly toe-to-toe. He pushed past Dennis to head for the door. “I don’t need support. I also don’t need the headache you’re giving me.”
Jack was there, right in his path, to stop him.
“Get out of the way,” Robby said impatiently.
“You need to take a minute,” Jack said, not budging. “Do you really think Dennis deserved what you just said to him?”
Robby looked over his shoulder at Dennis’ sad little face and sighed.
“And Kat,” Jack continued, crossing his arms. “She’s been nothing but a good sister to you, and how have you been treating her? Like a stranger, an intruder. Like shit, Mikey. These walls are pretty thin…” He knocked on one to prove his point. “…We all heard you bitching at her.”
An embarrassed blush reached Robby’s cheek just as Kat re-entered the room, her eyes puffy but dry.
"You wanna snap at someone, snap at me," Jack said, tilting his head to get Robby to look at him. "They don't need it, and they don't deserve it. That's what I'm here for, man. I can take it. I'm used to it."
Used to it?
"Used to it?"
Jack's expression was hard to read.
Hot, angry tears stung at Robby's eyes. "Fuck..." he whispered. He raised his voice. "Fuck! I..." His breath hitched in his throat. "I spent my entire adult life trying not to end up like my mother, and I ended up just like my father instead. Dammit!"
Jack's eyes widened in regret. "That's not what I meant," he said, putting a hand on Robby's shoulder, only to have it pushed off. "Mikey, I didn't mean it like that."
"Yeah, you did," Robby accused.
"You're not just like him," Jack insisted.
Robby scoffed, his chest heaving. "That's only because I don't have kids to abandon or beat!"
"Beat?" Kat said.
Robby clenched his eyes shut.
"He beat you?" Kat asked.
He didn't look at her. He couldn't. He locked eyes with Dennis instead. That was almost worse.
The kitchen door opened. It was Rabbi Solomon. "Sorry to interrupt," he said awkwardly. "Your brother is here?"
"Alek?" Kat said. Her voice was shaky. She wiped her eyes. "Alek's here?"
Rabbi Solomon nodded. "He's waiting on the porch. He said he didn't want to come in without speaking to the two of you first."
Kat stayed in place, so Robby left the kitchen and walked through the house, stepping onto the front porch to see his younger brother awkwardly standing out there in the cold.
"Hey..." Alek said.
"You're not supposed to greet me," Robby said. As if he actually cared about strictly following all the rules. "You missed the funeral."
Alek nodded. "Yeah... Yeah, I’m sorry. I couldn't get an earlier flight."
"Why are you here?" Robby asked.
"Kat invited me."
"You're not practicing. You weren’t rasied Jewish."
"No, but he was my father too. And I talked to a Rabbi back home. She said I can still do the shiva thing if I wanted to. Since I'm his son–"
"And if I don't want you here?" Robby interrupted.
Alek gave him a shameful look. "I know the last time I was here, it didn't exactly end... well."
"You don't say?" Robby replied sarcastically.
Alek shifted uncomfortably. "Where's Kat?"
"Inside."
"Can I talk to her?"
"Seriously, Alek, why are you here? You never even met the man."
"I could ask you the same question, Mike. I know you hated him, so why are you doing this anyways?"
"Because I don't have a choice."
"Sure you do."
"No, I don't. By law, I am required to go through this process."
"By law?"
"Yes, dipshit. Jewish law. All spouses, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters, and sons are required."
"So I'm required too. What's the fucking problem then?"
Robby felt his blood start to boil. He clenched his fists and tried to take a deep breath to calm down, but he still ended up yelling when he said, "I don't want you here!"
"Robby?"
Hearing Dennis' voice was a bit of a shock. He turned around and noticed all his guests were staring. He left the door open. Shit.
"What?" Robby asked, hearing how harsh he sounded and giving it another go. "What is it?" A little better. But not by much.
"I think you need a minute," Dennis said.
Robby blinked at him. Then he looked down. Then he went inside, right past Dennis, right up the stairs to his room. He closed the door and stayed in there until he heard most of the visitors leave. Obligations be damned.
A soft knock sounded on his bedroom door and he looked up to see Rabbi Solomon peeking in. When Robby made no protests, he entered the room and sat next to him on the floor by his bed, remaining silent until Robby looked over and said, “I know I’m supposed to be downstairs.”
“You’re still sitting shiva, so I have no complaints,” Solomon replied.
Robby looked down and realized he technically was, so he scoffed. “It wasn’t intentional.”
“Even so,” Solomon said with a shrug. He turned to look at Robby. “The last of your guests will be leaving soon.”
“Good.”
“Your coworkers are waiting to say goodbye.”
“Did Kat let Alek stay?”
“She did.”
“Wonderful.”
“He is more than welcome to sit shiva for his father, Michael, even if he was not raised Jewish.”
“He doesn’t have to do it here. He could’ve just stayed in Colorado. He should’ve.”
“He wanted to be with his family. He seems like a nice man.”
“He’s an addict.”
“Yes, I know. He told me. We had a fascinating discussion about religion’s place in addiction treatment.”
“I don’t want him here.”
“Why?”
“Did he tell you all the shit he did last time he was in this house? Of course not. That would require emotional maturity and a sense of responsibility. Neither of which he possesses.”
“You don’t believe in forgiveness, Michael? Teshuvah?”
Robby glared at him. “Some things are beyond forgiveness.”
“Do you really, truly believe that?” Solomon asked.
“Sorry I’m not as high and mighty as you.”
“You’ve grown quite bitter in your old age, Michael.”
“You’re older than me.”
“Only by a few months.”
Robby rubbed his hands over his face, hiding the tears forming in his eyes. “I don’t want to do this.”
Solomon put a comforting hand on Robby’s shoulder. “I know it’s hard. But that’s what we’re all here for: to support you and your family.”
“My family is part of the problem,” Robby said, shrugging him off. “Which we just discussed, in case you forgot already.”
“So you have problems with your brother, but what about Kat?” Solomon asked. “She’s always been lovely. She used to babysit me and my brother. She was at your bar mitzvah and your graduations, right? She even invited you and your partner to her wedding. Has she done something to deserve such hatred from you since then?”
He didn’t respond.
Solomon stood. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a restful night, Michael. And think about what I’ve said.”
A few moments later, Robby got up, with creaking and cracking bones, and headed back downstairs. Surprisingly, he found Dana, Jack, and Dennis still there waiting for him.
He didn’t say anything at first.
Neither did they.
Dana readjusted her purse on her shoulder and gave Robby’s arm a light tap. “I can’t leave without these yahoos ‘cause we carpooled, but I need to get home and feed the husband, water the kids. You know how it is.”
“Your kids don’t live at home anymore,” Robby replied.
She tutted and gave his arm another tap. “Ever heard of a joke, Robinavitch?” She pulled him into a hug. “Don’t worry about work, okay? Me and Jack’ll hold down the fort for the week. Take your time to grieve.”
Robby hugged her back, suppressing the urge to keep reiterating that he wasn’t really grieving.
When she pulled away, Jack pretty quickly took her place. His hug was briefer but no less personal. “See you tomorrow, brother. I love you,” he whispered, pressing a small peck on his cheek.
“I love you too,” Robby replied, giving his hand a squeeze before he stepped aside.
And then it was Dennis’ turn.
His hug was the tightest, and Robby buried his nose in the curls atop his head, taking in the long-faded scent of his shampoo.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Dennis said softly. “Right after my shift, I promise.”
“Don’t rush too much. You’re welcome any time,” Robby said, shifting away just enough to look him in the eye. “Shower, get changed, eat dinner if you want. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
Dennis’ big sad puppy eyes bored into his soul. “Are you gonna be okay by yourself tonight?”
“Of course,” Robby answered easily, acting as if there was no reason for him to ask that question in the first place.
Dennis pulled him close again. “Call me if it gets to be too much,” he mumbled against Robby’s chest. “I’ll be sitting up worrying about you anyways.”
“Okay…” he said, his voice cracking with a surge of unexpected emotion. He kissed Dennis’ head and finally let him go despite how badly he wanted to keep holding on. He turned his head away from them as they left, wiping a few stray tears from his cheeks.
And with the visitors gone, only family remained. There was a lot left hanging in the air that needed to be addressed and resolved, but Robby still just wanted them all to leave. Seven days couldn’t pass fast enough.
masterpost
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another BIG MASSIVE HUGE GIGANTIC THANKS to @puppydogdennis for helping me, inspiring me, educating me, and acting as a sensitivity reader for this whole arc of the story :3 it's always a joy talking to u <3
as always i did my best and obviously had (quite a lot of) outside input from my lovely expert tagged above but if i messed something up please let me know!
also! thanks to all the readers for being patient while i worked thru a bit (two months?) of burnout lol
i appreciate you guys so much uwu
can't wait for episode 17 of the pitt season 2 this thursday right???????? hahhahahahahahahah ignore my tears im not crying i promise :')
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